“Don’t say I only _say_ it,” cried she, nestling up to him with pleading reproach. “Go on, go on lecturing me; but keep your hand so on my shoulder all the time.” And his lecture had to die away into endearing words, and when the hansom stopped, George found it difficult to resist the temptation, urged upon him in a soft whisper by his companion, to tell the cabman to “drive on.” But he nerved himself to a sense of duty and propriety, jumped out and rang the bell of a well-kept house, at the door of which appeared a neat servant who informed him that Miss Glass was at home. Miss Glass was a woman of five and forty, with an honest fresh-coloured face, who insisted on kissing George because she had nursed him when he was a baby, and who willingly consented to do all she could for his bride-elect. The eccentric appearance of that lady when she was brought inside the house seemed somewhat to shock her ideas of propriety; but when, after George had bidden her good-night and gone to the door, the poor child ran out after him and entreated him not to leave her--she was so lonely--she had never been all by herself among strangers before--Miss Glass put her arms round the girl in very kindly fashion, and soothed her into some sort of despondent and melancholy resignation. “You’ll come early, won’t you?” Nouna cried from the doorstep in heart-broken tones. “If you don’t come before ten I shall come to the barracks after you.” George assured her that he would come before breakfast, and drove off, excited by the rapidity with which this important step of marriage was forcing itself upon him. He had surprised himself lately by developing an infinite capacity for doing rash things, but he was saved by his native obstinacy from the weakness of regretting them; therefore, although he acknowledged to himself that this headlong plunge into matrimony was the rashest act of all, and that his chances of domestic happiness were about the same as if he had decided to unite himself for life to a Cherokee squaw, he was resolved in dare-devil fashion to stick to his colours and make the best of it, and this state of mind left him calm enough to think of a little act of kind consideration towards poor Mrs. Ellis who, he knew, must by this time be half crazy with anxiety about her charge. So he drove to Mary Street, and after satisfying the governess that Nouna was safe, though he declined, for fear of Rahas, to give her address, he went down stairs and knocked at the door of the Oriental merchant’s apartments. The grey-haired Fanah opened it, however, and with a real or affected ignorance of English, explained, chiefly by gestures and incoherent noises that his nephew was “gone away.” So that George, who was burning for some short and sharp vengeance, he hardly knew what, upon Rahas for his infamous advice to Nouna, was forced to retire with that praiseworthy wish unsatisfied.